Gossamer or spider web shawls have been knitted in Orenburg for generations. The tradition nearly disappeared, but folk crafts are in the ascendant again — there is money to be made from them, after all, says Elena Strelnikova

A new Russian law banning US adoptions has been roundly criticised at home and abroad; a toddler’s unexplained death has been held up as justification. For Daniil Kotsyubinsky, it is all a case of history repeating: Russia’s past is full of tragic cases where children have become innocent victims.

Last week, Russians bid farewell to a man many considered to be the country’s greatest living filmmaker. Largely under-appreciated in the West, Alexei German’s films delighted in their complexity, tones, textured aesthetics, and the absence of simple heroes or villains. Ian Christie remembers him

Police custody, violence, trials and imprisonment have been all to common features on the Russian protest landscape since December 2011. A grassroots monitoring project called OVD-info has kept realtime data on the arrests; co-founder Grigory Okhotin shares their findings. 

London’s Pushkin House is hosting a retrospective of Russian director Marina Goldovskaya’s documentaries under the heading ‘Russia since Perestroika'. Masha Karp reflects on Goldovskaya’s distinctive art and the issues raised in her films.

Continuing oDRussia's debate on the future for Russian NGO funding, now a view from the coal face. Pavel Chikov is chair of one of the country's most respected NGOs: he argues that foundation grants remain the simplest way to let human rights activists get on with their work. 

Russian NGOs have traditionally looked abroad for their funding, and are dismayed at recent legislation setting up new barriers to this practice. Almut Rochowanski argues, however, that this should be seen as a challenge to increase the involvement of the Russian public in the development of civil society.